4 Buffalo Bills (12-5) at 2 Houston Oilers (10-6)
The Bills not only entered this game hot off the heels of their eight consecutive win, but also with a bit of a chip on their shoulders. After streaking into and through the playoffs last year, they were effectively bounced out by the Oilers en route to their Tecmo Bowl Championship. Thurman Thomas' late-season injury hurt his MVP chances, however his return last week has immensely helped his team's chances in the Championship. They'll see what their chances are against a Houston team with a reputation of a sleeping monster.
Much like last week, the Bills ran out to a quick start behind Jim Kelly's unpredictable arm and Thurman Thomas grinding the grass. Unlike last week, they wouldn't bait the Oilers into building back their hopes. The defending champions headed into halftime with a goose egg on the scoreboard, and their fortunes wouldn't change outside of a garbage time touchdown.Buffalo heads into their second consecutive Conference Championship, though this time on the advantage of a hot streak unseen in any other blogged Tecmo season. With a back that runs 100+ yards and a surprising defense that held the potent Houston team to under 200 yards, this particular Buffalo Tecmo team has destiny on their side.
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4 San Francisco 49ers (11-6) at 2 Atlanta Falcons (12-4)
Last year, this would have been a glamorous match-up for the 49ers, another walk-over on their way to a sure-fire championship. It's a new season, however, one that saw Atlanta put the screws to their divisional big brothers on two occasions. Due to the strength of the Wild NFC West, the Niners were threatened with the foreign concept of being on the outside looking in come postseason time. Thanks to a series of fortunate events, San Francisco squeaked in just in time to bounce out the Saints, whose apparent fatigue from pretending all season long got the best of them. Atlanta is not New Orleans, however, taking over the West in the last quarter of the season. Now it's just a matter of whether or not momentum will be their enemy.Momentum found a friend in Jerry Rice, who took a wide open pass in stride to score on the opening play of the game. Normally a tempo-setting play for the 49ers, it was not to be as San Francisco soon found themselves victim to the arm of Chris Miller. The unsung hero of the dirty birds found weapons all over the field, from football card favorite Andre Rison to the humble Harper Lebel. San Francisco kept it close to halftime, but with the ball being kicked to Atlanta at the beginning of the third quarter, it was going to be a difficult feat to play catch-up.
The 49ers brought the margin to 3 on three separate occasions, however they couldn't take advantage of the few mistakes Atlanta afforded them. Only ahead by three, Miller was driving Atlanta down for another touchdown, though a costly interception led to Young being saddled with the chance to drive his team to a win. A fumble by Mike Sherrard in the 49ers' red zone, however, would turn out to be the microcosm of their entire day.
And so the Falcons stay undefeated against San Francisco this season, and the Niners go home victims of their second sudden and crushing divisional loss in a row.
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3 San Diego (11-6) at 1 Miami (11-4-1)
Miami took the Number 1 seed in one of the weakest conferences in memory, though it wasn't by sneaking in any back doors. The Dolphins finished the season ranked first in the power rankings after railing off 5 wins in their last 6 games. San Diego, another division champion, is the opposite of everything Miami represents, dropping 4 of their last 5 while seemingly attempting to give up a division they all-but clinched halfway through the season. The Chargers advanced last week, but didn't come off any more intimidating after winning behind the shaky leg of their kicker in overtime.
The Dolphins started the game off pretty hot, with Bobby Humphrey coming off the IR to carry his team's opening kickoff to the opponent's 23-yard line. Quarterback Dan Marino looked as efficient as ever, threading the needle to a covered Mark Duper to go up by a quick score. Unlike last week, however, San Diego responded in turn with an 80-yard flea flicker from Stan Humphries to Anthony Miller. The two teams entered halftime knotted up at 10, but by then it was clear which team had control over the game.Starting in the 3rd quarter, it was all San Diego behind the Stan Humphries show. Postseason darling a year ago, Humphries finally showed the type of leadership to lead another Cinderella team deep into the postseason with two long bombs to Nate Lewis to lock up a Championship spot next week in the hostile Miami territory.
Though the Chargers didn't leave much to get excited about toward the end of the season, they've appeared to start rallying behind the man that fell a failed onside kick short of a Tecmo Bowl Championship last season. This year, he's not only got the advantage of capable receivers but also the unpredictable legs of Rod Bernstine, secret weapon in Marion Butts, and a silent but deadly defense that not only picked one of the league's lowest interception-throwers 3 times, but also held a dominant offense to just 96 total yards.
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6 Dallas Cowboys (11-6) at 1 Philadelphia Eagles (12-4)
These two teams know each other well, and though the Eagles finished out a bit hotter than the Cowboys it was a fair toss-up as to who would come out the victors in this contest. Having split the season series, the tiebreaker arose here with a win-or-go-home mentality all over this mother. Dallas beat up on Chicago pretty well last weekend behind their multidimensional offense, though the Philadelphia offense they would face posed a few more difficulties than the Moles of the Midway.
The Cowboys got a taste of their enemy early after going three-and-out to open the game, followed by an offensive attack led by cast-off back Herschel Walker. Perhaps a bit peeved after coming up 2 yards short of a Tecmo Bowl appearance with the Vikings last season, Walker walked, ran and caught all over the Dallas defense, putting his team up quickly. By halftime, the Eagles were up by 12 behind not only Walker's prowess but the effectiveness of their special teams and defense, who scored a safety of Troy Aikman.Philadelphia's dominance continued into the second half, despite losing Walker to injury. With a chance to let up, the Eagles continued to pour it on to perhaps send a message to the waiting Falcons. We predicted this match-up for the NFC Championship with slightly different results, though we couldn't be more excited for Conference Championship weekend.
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